Customer, This Isn't Ordinary Laundry

If a laundromat shut down for good, who did the laundry left inside the machines belong to? The answer was simple. It belonged to the customer who never came back for it.

But if blood started running out of a machine in a shop that was already going under?

That was my problem.

At 2:58 in the morning, dark red water spread beneath Machine No. 1 at Manbok Laundromat. I closed the messages I had been trading with the demolition company. Their last line was still there, asking me to have the machines emptied by nine.

Seven machines to haul away. Once I took the back rent and the demolition fee out of what remained of the deposit, I would be left with 820,000 won.

The first shop I had ever owned, at twenty-five, kept its numbers exact to the very end.

I picked up a rag to wipe the water, then set it down again.

A palm print was stamped on the inside of the washer. The fingers were too long to pass off as a joke. Five streaks smeared across the glass kept flickering into six, and through the gaps between them came a deep, sticky sound of breathing.

I backed away and stepped on a laundry basket.

"No. This does not get to happen today."

There were no customers in the shop. The twenty-four-hour sign over the door was lit, but lately even the night-shift delivery drivers crossed the street to the new chain. In the four months since Grandmother died, what I had been keeping watch over felt less like a business than an empty chair.

And yet there was exactly one thing someone had left behind while I wasn't looking.

A long cloak, inside Machine No. 1.

I checked the payment record. Cash inserted ten minutes ago: 6,000 won. Waiting, with no cycle selected. Someone had put the money in and never pressed start.

I pulled on a pair of long rubber gloves first. Finding a split over the right index finger, I changed to a fresh pair. I had learned only a handful of skills in my life, and not laying bare hands on an unknown contaminant was one of them.

A folded slip of paper lay beside the cloak.

The handwriting on the last line shook badly. The moment I unfolded the paper, the finger marks vanished. In their place, the bloody water beneath the glass stretched a little farther toward the door.

I picked up my phone. The instant I dialed the Hunter Association's contamination hotline, a familiar recorded voice came on.

Across the street, a red emergency light was turning on the roof of the Baekho Guild building. Ten minutes earlier, a banner congratulating them on a successful dungeon clear had still been hanging there.

The call never connected.

I set the phone on the floor and eased open the door of Machine No. 1, which had no auto-lock. A smell like burning rubber surged up at me.

The cloak was not black. It was thick cloth in a deep navy, with a white tiger embroidered in silver thread across the shoulder. I had seen that emblem on an advertisement at the bus stop. On the woman up on the billboard, the cloak had looked magnificent.

In front of me now, that same cloak was breathing.

I spread a waterproof sheet and caught the hem with a clothespin. Small letters floated up before my eyes.

I dropped the pin.

The machine's display was dark. I wasn't wearing glasses. Even so, the text stayed stuck to the cloak no matter which way I turned my head.

"…What is this."

I had heard that hunters saw a Status Window when they awakened. A friend of mine said that on the day he first awakened, he spent three hours on the fire-station stairs reading his own name. I had taken that for a joke.

There was no name for me. No rank, and no attack power. Only laundry warnings.

I took hold of the cloak again. The text shrank, and a single red dot appeared on the inside of the collar, right where the stitching overlapped.

Expensive clothes are usually sewn with care, and anything fine enough to carry an embroidered guild emblem even more so. Along the collar lining, though, a clumsy red thread ran in two passes. No one had even hidden the end of it in a knot.

Grandmother always told me to turn a garment inside out. A lining told the truth more reliably than a customer insisting the clothes were expensive.

I started to pick at the thread with a fingernail, then stopped. It felt as if the nail under the glove were being pulled along with it.

I let go of the thread. My heart started pounding, late.

Seeing a thing like this did not mean I had suddenly become a hunter. The door was six steps away. All I had to do was step outside and shout to whoever was standing under that emergency light.

That was when something else slipped out from under the paper.

A loosely tied yellow ribbon, with names written at the end in black pen.

It looked as though the ribbon had been fastened to a small loop on the inside of the cloak. The blood-soaked cloth crept slowly toward it. The last stroke of Min-jae, which had not changed at all a moment ago, began to blur.

If I shoved the cloak back into the machine, would that writing disappear too?

I picked up the phone, still trying to get through, and switched it to speaker. I meant to keep the report going until someone answered. Then I pulled a wash basin out from under the worktable.

"Can't pull it free. Can't use heat, either."

I drew cold water. Before adding any detergent, I wet a single stitch at the edge of the lining. The red dot did not move. When I dissolved the slightest pinch of oxygen bleach, the dot swelled and turned black.

I dumped the water at once.

The second time, I used only a neutral detergent. This time a thin channel of water showed along the edge of the dot. Nothing soaked through the coated outer fabric, but the cotton lining took the water in.

There was a way through. Don't pull from the outside. Loosen it from within.

Dark red liquid welled up to my wrist. I kept hold of the pin and shoved the basin back. Little footprints formed along the grout of the floor tiles.

One step. Two.

They were not aimed at the entrance. They were aimed at my feet.

I moved the basin onto the waterproof sheet in front of Machine No. 1. The machine was still there, and so was the money already paid into it. Shut the door, and there would at least be a pane of glass between that thing and me.

I folded the cloak into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a laundry net with the collar turned outward, then worked a stain brush over the wet lining until the detergent soaked in evenly.

The red thread writhed in the water.

If I rolled the garment the way the thread was moving, the knot would only cinch tighter. I folded it the other way. On any ordinary day I would have sent a piece like this out for dry cleaning. Today, the only instruction I trusted was the one written on that paper. Cold water.

The bell over the door rang.

"Get away from that!"

A woman in gray sweats stood braced against the glass door. The woman from the billboard. Without the cloak on her shoulders, I nearly didn't recognize her.

Seo Yul, Guildmaster of Baekho Guild.

She was leaning against the wall, and she was missing one shoe.

"That's mine. I'll take it, so—don't touch it."

Black veins had climbed from her right hand all the way to the elbow. When she reached toward me, the fluorescent light overhead went out for a moment.

"You can't pull on it right now."

"I know. That's why I'm—"

I shut the washer door.

Seo Yul started to move and went down on her knees. Her hand struck the floor, and two tiles split. She stared at her own hand, startled.

"No."

I knew that word was not meant for me.

Cold water. Wool cycle. No spin. I pressed the selection buttons one at a time, and at the end I raised only the water level. The garment needed room to move.

Seo Yul caught my wrist. Fingers like ice closed over the rubber glove.

"Three professional Purifiers already failed."

"What did they do?"

"They tried to burn it with sacred fire… and then they tried to cut it out."

Cold water. Do not put it in fire.

I looked at the folded paper.

"Did you write this?"

She shook her head.

I pressed start.

Seo Yul's fingers tightened. I swallowed the sound of pain and watched the machine's display. Whatever the Status Window was, it was not telling me whether the choice I had just made was the right one.

On the first rotation, black water sheeted over the glass. On the second, a palm pushed against the door from the inside.

I set my hand on the stop button. The fingers inside the glass were growing longer. One more turn, and they looked as if they would reach the edge of the door.

But the red thread was shifting, little by little. Every time the current reversed, the center of the knot opened wider.

A washing machine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠does not turn in only one direction.

It was the same motion Grandmother used, by hand, when she teased apart quilt batting. Push, rest, push the other way. I took my hand off the button.

Click.

One knot came undone.

The strength went out of Seo Yul's hand. She let out a very long breath, and only then did I realize she had been holding it all along.

The palm inside the machine flattened, then became a thin bundle of thread. The thread drained away. The water ran red, and on the second rinse it cleared.

Twenty-seven minutes later, the cycle-complete chime sounded.

My legs were still shaking.

I opened the door and spread the cloak. The navy was still navy. The silver-thread white tiger was still there. I was glad I hadn't bleached it white. Discolor a garment this expensive, and I could have saved a life and still gone bankrupt.

Seo Yul looked at the lining, looked at her hand, and looked at me again.

"You… washed this out?"

"Yes."

I hung the cloak on a drying rack. I was still afraid of the hot dryer.

"That said, ma'am—there's an extra charge for special contamination."

She laughed, and in the middle of it pressed the back of her hand to the corner of her eye.

"I'll pay whatever it is. How much?"

I found the special-contamination line on the price chart. Beside coffee, wine, and cooking oil sat a figure I had never once had occasion to charge.

"Eighteen thousand won. You've already paid the base fee."

The laughter left Seo Yul's face.

Afraid the amount had been too steep, I hurried to add the rest.

"I'll give you a receipt."

Seo Yul's phone rang.

She looked at the screen and shoved her chair back, already on her feet.

"Sir."

From outside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the door, she looked up at the guild across the street. The windows on the sixth floor were turning black all at once.